Show Your Flatcar Load

[sarge]

Here is one of my old loads back when I modelled New England. Most of us here are familiar with Rich Yoder's gun-flats shown here:



Here's what people don't model, which is how the flats looked when they were going back empty:



All the clamps and cribbing are in the crates, and the span-girder remains in place. The crates are castings and the span girders were replicated using styrene I-beam with rivets punched in with a NWSL rivetter.

[J. S. Bach]

Speaking of depressed-center flats, look what showed up on the receiving track today:








The underside:


Close-up of the two different brands of trucks:






Oddly, the one with the Humvee (there were three on the car) sold for less that the one without??? Maybe someone does not like Humvees! Anyway, the four-axle Buckeye is Lobaugh (as far as I can tell), but the Commonwealth (?) is unknown, at least to me and the Walthers three-axle buckeyes will get their wheels replaced before going into service, along with (maybe) some minor detail parts on the car itself. The Lionel conversions were done nicely and will be a great addition to my heavy-duty fleet; I am thinking of patching them for a fictitious heavy-hauler leasing fleet. Oh, and note that the "missing" details on the one Lionel car are in the box and just have to be re-installed.


My tanker fleet also increased by one:

Another two-railed Lionel that may not do what I want; that is, supply an already two-railed chassis for another project. Apparently Lionel used several differnt chassis over the tears. This one is die-cast with a sheet metal tank. Actually, rather nicely done. Oh, my other is PRR in Tuscan. Probably not correct.

[J. S. Bach]

Can you bring that to Strasburg? There is a very slim chance that I will be there and would like to see it in person.

I'd be happy to, though you will have to remind me closer in, because I will forget between now and then.

Hmmmf, and who is going to remind me to remind you???

[J. S. Bach]

...snip...

Is that an MTH flat? I have one that looks identical to that that is awaiting two-railing. Mine is one of those "engineering or prototype samples" that floated out into the 'bay and no one seemed to want as I got it for the minimum bid and is lettered for NYC. Another interesting tidbit: Athearn in HO offered a span-bolster four-truck flat car with pipe load that was lettered ERIE 8086.

[J. S. Bach]

As Bob said that I could, his and my pictures are now duplicated here.

Feel free to move my photos if you do. I was just responding to your first post on drop-center cars.

I went with wood supports for a few years, then decided to make it permanent. The lower blocks are machined aluminum, bolted to the car casting. Upper blocks are brass, bolted to the aluminum, clamping the armature in place. This is a "before" picture:
][/quote]

And here is an actual operating steam feedwater pump. The car is walnut, from a long-forgotten project, and the center is a well, to accommodate the lower reaches of the pump:

Here is mine; at least the start of the project. I was originally going to use the larger flat with the three-axle Buckeyes but thanks to you, I now know that the slightly smaller flat will do. Hey, I was too l lazy to put the two together until today; not to mention that the three-axle car is deeply buried anyway.

Well, it was deeply buried until today; see one of my posts above.

Note that I thought about starting a "depressed-center flat and other heavy duty cars" thread but saw your previous post so here is mine. I still might do it, though.

Sarge, it seems like you beat me to it! This is a very interesting thread and will, hopefully, stay around for awhile.

[2railjon]

Dave, Nice find on the flatcars!!! I'm jelly!
And yes, my depressed flat started life as an MTH search light car.

[John Webster]

A friend of mine was a powerplant engineer and he tells the tale of a large piece of rotating machinery shipped on a depressed center flat car (oversize load, special routing, slow orders) that showed up at the plant wrong end forward. It had to be shipped back over 100 miles to the nearest wye that could accomodate it and then returned.

That would make an interesting move for those that operate their layouts. The dispatcher would not be happy.

[sarge]

Dave:

Actually (credit where credit is due) Jon started this particular thread. I just encouraged him, then came roaring in with my funny four-wheel stuff that still has most folks raising an eyebrow.

Speaking of that, a couple useful thoughts:

Don't overlook the HO aisle in the hobby shop for interesting loads. They have lots of resin cast "glue-it-ons" for depressed centre and heavy flats that we can use on normal flats or in gondolas (or in my case in open wagons). Chooch is one such manufacturer of useful castings...

[J. S. Bach]

I like that Peco "bullhead" rail. So much so that I was able to get two boxes of it on ebay for far less than Atlas two-rail. Hmmmf, just remembered that I have three wyes; need a wye for a right or left?

[sarge]

Dave:

I have no sets of points in hand right now, but here is a link to Tower Models in Blackpool.

http://tower-models.com/

A pair of Peco points costs £40. Straight away, take off 20% for the VAT you don't pay since the US isn't in the EU, so £32. In dollars that is only about $48. Even shipped, that compares very very favourably with what Atlas go for on the street and certainly beats what an American distributor charges for Peco points here.

You pay no duty to the US for these imported by you for your use.

Email them; gent's name is Dave Brewer. Tell him I sent you...

[2railjon]

Sarge, The tarps over your load are incredibly realistic!!! What did you use?
Inquiring young apprentices must know!

[sarge]

The two skids on the ends are commercial HO castings. The centre one is a motor casting glued to a piece of styrene for a base. I covered it in cling-film which is then taped to the bottom of the base so it wouldn't "pull" when a latex mould was poured around it. Then it was cast up in resin. Cling-film makes very nice folds in the "tarp".

All three were painted with a Binks Wren airbrush and Tru-color paint (which is nice stuff, by the way) then washed with thinned India Ink.

[2railjon]

[up148]

eBay 3-14-2015 001.JPG

eBay 3-14-2015 002.JPG

Not exactly a creative load but I couldn't think of anything to put on it. Recently found this RC UP flatcar I started distressing the deck on 15-20 years ago and decided to finish it up. Still needs couplers and weathering to be complete and either a good load or strapping material remnants from a previous load.

butch

[sarge]

Butch:

A nice looking car, that.

Any idea of a load in mind?